Revelation
(Sri Ramanma Hridayam)

A Sanskrit Version of the Ulladu Narpadu of Bhagavan Sri Ramana with an English Translation by K. Lakshmana Sarma ('Who')
 

Introduction

 

2. Translating into Sanskrit the work which Ramana the Sage composed in Tamil for His devotees' delight, one of His humble devotees, sustained by His grace, composed this work named Ramana Hridayam in easy style, for the peace of his own mind.

 

Benedictory Verses

 

4. Can there be of existence without something that is? Is Real Consciousness a thing other than That? Since that (Reality) dwells, thought-free, in the Heart; how can It, - Itself named the Heart, - be meditated on? And who is there, distinct from It, to meditate on It, the Self whose nature is Reality Consciousness? Know that to meditate on It is just to be at one with It within the Heart.

 

Part I

 

1. Discrimination

 

7. All the faiths that prevail in the world affirm, to begin with, (the existence of) the world, the soul and God. The two contentions, namely that One Reality is sensed as threefold, and that they are three distinct entities, are upheld (as intellectual convictions) while the sense 'I am the body' persists. But the highest state is the being firmly established in one's own real Nature (as the Real Self), by giving up that delusion.

 

23. The world is real both to the non-knower and to the knower of the Real. He that lacks knowledge of the Real believes the Real to be coextensive with the world. To the knower the Real shines as the formless One, the basic substance of the world. Great indeed is the difference between the knower of That and the non-knower.

 

2. The Quest

 

28. The body, being devoid of consciousness, has no egoism of its own; no one ever says 'I did not exist in dreamless sleep;' all things come into being when this 'I' is risen; therefore search with concentrated mind for the source wherefrom this ego-sense arises.

 

31. When this thing is known as I is risen, then rises all this world; when the I is not, neither does the world exist, therefore this I is itself all the world; therefore (extinction of the I by) the Quest of 'Who is this I,' or 'Whence is he' is to get rid of the whole (world).

 

34. Diving into the Heart, - restraining both speech and mind and seeking 'where shines the (original) I-Consciousness, - is the direct means of winning the Awareness of the Self. The meditation 'I am not this body, I am myself That' is (useful only as) a preliminary to the Quest. Is it itself the Quest of the Self?

 

Experience

 

35. When the mind, introverted by being engaged in the Quest of 'Who am I,' is lost in the Heart, and the ego bows his head in shame, there shines by Its own light a Pure Consciousness as the limitless I; that (Consciousness) is not the spurious ego; It is the Transcendental, Infinite Reality; It is the blissful Real Self.

 

42. Even the statement that duality is real so long as one is striving to reach the goal, but in the goal there is non-duality, is not at all correct, what else but the tenth man was the man in the parable, both when he himself was anxiously seeking for the tenth man as one that was missing, and when he had found himself (to be that missing tenth man)?

 

44. If there be the thought 'I am bound,' then will arise also the thought of deliverance. When, by the Quest of 'Who am I that is bound,' the Ever-Free Real Self alone remains, ageless and deathless, to whom can the thought of bondage come? If that thought cannot arise, then how can the thought of deliverance arise to the Sage who has done with actions?

 

Part II

 

Chapter II - Non-Duality

 

53. 'What is the light for thee (for seeing objects)?' 'By day the sun, by night lamps and the like.' 'By day the sun, by night lamps and the like.' 'What is the light for seeing these?' 'The eye.' 'What is the light for seeing that?' 'The mind.' 'By what light dost thou perceive the mind?' 'I myself perceive it.' 'Therefore thou art thyself the Light of all lights, infinite and transcending all.' 'True. I am That.'

 

54. Inside the cave of the Heart the Pure and Infinite Being Himself shines as the Self, the limitless I, Enter thou the Heart, diving by the Quest of the Self or by holding the breath and thus be one with the Self.

 

56. The body, like anything made of earth, is insentient; it has no sense of 'I'; therefore I am not that; also because it is certain that the Self exists in dreamless sleep, in which there is no body. 'Who is he that says I?' Or 'Whence is he?' To those that, which pure mind (seeking the Self in this way), become established in the Self, the blissful, perfect Being, namely Arunachala, Himself shines as I.

 

Ch. IV - Meditation

 

64. Among the six organs of various colours situated above the belly, there is one, the Heart, resembling a lily-bud, two finger-breadths from the centre of the chest.

 

65. Its mouth is closed; in the space within it there are the (chief) nerves; it is the abode of darkness; of the (acquired) mental habits, the vital force, the mind and the Light (namely Consciousness).

 

69. ''The Heart which is Pure Consciousness, in which the universe is reflected, and which is quite other (than the last mentioned), should be known as the one to be accepted. It is both outside and inside, and it is neither outside nor inside; It is the store-house of all good thing, for all creatures;

 

70. ''When the mind attains fixity in this the real Heart by the Quest of the Self, there occurs the extinction of all mental taints, and the vital air ceases to move also.''

 

Ch. VII - The Teaching in Brief

 

86. I shall now set forth unmistakably the profound secret which is the supreme essence of the conclusions of the Upanishads; Understand that when the Self is (realised as) the Reality by the death of the ego, there remains over only that Real Self who is Pure Consciousness.

 

Commentary

 

The meaning of the first benedictory verse is briefly this:

 

A question may be put; Why should the Reality be described as Consciousness, and not as conscious? The answer is as follows; the mind is conscious; but its consciousness is discontinuous; in deep sleep it loses its consciousness; if the Reality also were only conscious, are not consciousness as here taught, then It would be discontinuously conscious, just like the mind; that would compel us to imagine another conscious being, into which its consciousness subsides, and so on endlessly; there can be finality only in a being whose very nature is consciousness. Therefore It is consciousness; in fact, Its being consciousness constitutes Its reality.

 

The question then arises; Why are we not aware of ourselves as this Pure Consciousness, mindless and worldless? Why do we falsely imagine ourselves to be finite selves in this manifold world? The answer is given in the first part of the third sentence, 'Since that (Reality) dwells, thought-free in the Heart.'

 

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